Cd Reviews

July 23, 2004|Sean Piccoli and Kelefa Sanneh, and Lawrence A. Johnson and The New York Times

ROCK

Gomez: Split the Difference (Virgin).

This British quintet can be mistaken for two bands -- one led by singer Ben Ottewell and the other by singer Ian Ball. The former, in which a throaty-voiced Ottewell sounds like the epitome of rust, plays hypnotic rock jams that channel the spirit if not the structure of ancient blues. The latter, led by Ball, is all boyish indie-pop.

This division of duties has caused some neck-injuring swivels from track to track on past records. But Split the Difference, its title apparently a nod to past criticisms of Gomez, does exactly that. The result is the most seamless integration yet of the band's earthy-yet-unearthly experimental music, achieved without turning Ottewell and Ball into the Everly Brothers.

The two split lead vocals, as always, but song sequences such as Do One (Ottewell), These 3 Sins (Ball), Silence (Ball) and Me You and Everybody (Ottewell) feel as if the whole band isn't writing expressly for one singer. Ottewell and Ball could swap vocals in each instance and the songs would still flow enchantingly, a burn-down-the-garage rocker handing off to a country-tinged rumble to a power-pop eruption to a forlorn waltz.

The other constant is Gomez's wearied intelligence, expressed as a low-grade disillusionment with selves, lovers and the world. Gomez gets its ennui out with cursive grace, whoever happens to be writing or singing these open diary entries. Listen to the Oasis-sized hook for Nothing Wrong -- "And we can make you feel like/ everything that's gone wrong/ happened for a reason" -- and one also hears a dark, confident wit: Gomez's consolation for being disappointed is knowing exactly what's gone wrong and why, and having enough combined talent to spell it out brilliantly in songs.

-- Sean Piccoli

POP

Kevin Lyttle: Kevin Lyttle (Atlantic).

If you've been listening to the radio this summer, you've probably heard the song: a gleefully synthetic confection with garish fake strings (or are those fake horns?) and a male voice catapulted up into falsetto range with the help of some pitch-shifting software. Like many summer hits, this one has lighter-than-air lyrics so as not to weigh down the airy beat: "Let me hold you/ Girl, caress your body/ You got me going crazy/ You turn me on, turn me on."

The song is Turn Me On by Kevin Lyttle, a singer from St. Vincent, and in the past year it has been a hit in places as varied as Denmark and Singapore. This summer it's America's turn: The song has been on the pop charts for 10 weeks, and last week it moved up one spot to No. 9. By now lots of listeners recognize that falsetto instantly, even if they couldn't tell you whose it is.

Lyttle's self-titled album is likely to turn him into this country's first mainstream soca star. Soca, a genre descended from calypso, hasn't yet caught on in the United States, but Lyttle's debut album could help change that. It's a lightweight but appealing collection of dance tracks, with precise digital beats that sound oddly similar to some European pop. Like Sean Paul before him, Lyttle has figured out a way to fit accessible pop songs on top of new beats.

The great and gruff dancehall vocalist Spragga Benz shows up on three tracks, including a remix of Turn Me On, delivering tough-sounding patter to balance Lyttle's cotton-candy voice. The songwriting isn't always very interesting, and Lyttle's voice sometimes seems less expressive than the computers that filter it, but the album is short and smartly produced, so there's not much to complain about.

In 1996 Valentin Silvestrov's wife, musicologist Larissa Bondarenko, died suddenly in a Kiev hospital. A year later the devastated composer began this music in her memory, completing what he believed would be his final work in 1999.

Requiem for Larissa is a powerful and communicative work, which manages to be mindful of tradition while infusing the familiar structure with a compelling, individual voice. Silvestrov's imaginative response to the Latin mass for the dead effectively blends his evanescent windswept style into the liturgy, creating a personal, deeply moving work that may well turn out to be the Ukrainian composer's masterpiece.

The somber music begins with the deep tolling of bass octaves by piano, harp, gong and low strings. Women's voices softly intone the word "Requiem," followed by male singers, the fragmented music, irregular and faltering, as if reflecting the composer in his numbed grief. Silvestrov transmutes his personal tragedy into a mostly quiet valedictory with several memorable touches: the intermittent rumbling of bass drum and timpani like distant thunder, or the plaintive nostalgic sound of a remote synthesizer, like cooling balm to the damaged soul.